An incapacity of relying on oneself and a faith in others are precisely the conditions that compel brutes to congregate and live in herds; and, again, it is essential to their safety in a country infested by large carnivora, that they should keep closely together in herds.  No ox grazing alone could live for many days unless he were protected, far more assiduously and closely than is possible to barbarians.  The Damara owners confide perhaps 200 cattle to a couple of half-starved youths, who pass their time in dozing or in grubbing up roots to eat.  The owners know that it is hopeless to protect the herd from lions, so they leave it to take its chance; and as regards human marauders they equally know that the largest number of cattle watchers they could spare could make no adequate resistance to an attack; they therefore do not send more than two, who are enough to run home and give the alarm to the whole male population of the tribe to run in arms on the tracks of their plundered property.  Consequently, as I began by saying, the cattle have to take care of themselves against the wild beasts, and they would infallibly be destroyed by them if they had not safeguards of their own, which are not easily to be appreciated at first sight at their full value.  We shall understand them better by considering the precise nature of the danger that an ox runs.  When he is alone it is not simply that he is too defenceless, but that he is easily surprised.  A crouching lion fears cattle who turn boldly upon him, and he does so with reason.  The horns of an ox or antelope are able to make an ugly wound in the paw or chest of a springing beast when he receives its thrust in the same way that an over-eager pugilist meets his adversary’s “counter” hit.  Hence it is that a cow who has calved by the wayside, and has been temporarily abandoned by the caravan, is never seized by lions.  The incident frequently occurs, and as frequently are the cow and calf eventually brought safe to the camp; and yet there is usually evidence in footprints of her having sustained a regular siege from the wild beasts; but she is so restless and eager for the safety of her young that no beast of prey can approach her unawares.  This state of exaltation is of course exceptional; cattle are obliged in their ordinary course of life to spend a considerable part of the day with their heads buried in the grass, where they can neither see nor smell what is about them.  A still larger part of their time must be spent in placid rumination, during which they cannot possibly be on the alert.  But a herd of such animals, when considered as a whole, is always on the alert; at almost every moment some eyes, ears, and noses will command all approaches, and the start or cry of alarm of a single beast is a signal to all his companions.  To live gregariously is to become a fibre in a vast sentient web overspreading many acres; it is to become the possessor of faculties always awake, of eyes that see in all directions,